A big payday for Mondelez, formerly known as Kraft, which is about to get given an extremely large check by former business partner Starbucks, reports the WSJ:

An arbitrator awarded Mondelez International Inc. $2.23 billion in damages in a long-running dispute with Starbucks Corp. over the coffee chain’s decision to reclaim the distribution of its bagged-coffee business in 2011.

The former Kraft Foods had unsuccessfully sued to block Starbucks from taking back the business that Kraft started from scratch and built up over 13 years into a business with $500 million in annual sales.

And it’s not just Mondelez set to cash in:

The decision also includes $527 million in prejudgment interest and attorneys’ fees.

That means a total north of $2.7 billion — a hefty amount given that when it last reported results on October 30, Starbucks had about $2.6 billion in cash and equivalents in the bank.

In a statement announcing the arbitrator’s decision, Starbucks CFO Troy Alstead said the company had “adequate liquidity both in the form of cash on hand and available borrowing capacity to fund the payment,” and that it woulds be booked as a charge in the company’s 2013 operating expenses.

Who else benefits from the deal? Governments both federal and local, Mondelez said in a statement, which will take about 37% of the payout in taxes — that’s just under $1 billion. “We’re glad to put this issue behind us,” Mondelez General Counsel Gerd Pleuhs said, with the company planning to use what’s left of the payout on more share buybacks.

Here’s how it all began: Kraft first did the deal to distribute Starbucks-brand packs of coffee in 1998, and by 2010 it had grown to a $500 million a year business. That was when Starbucks decided the partnership, which had no expiry date, should come to an end. Here’s how the WSJ reported the spat back in 2010:

In a letter dated Oct. 5, Starbucks accused Kraft of failing to properly market packaged-coffee products. For example, the coffee company says Kraft hasn’t maintained appropriate displays inside grocery stores where Starbucks merchandise is sold. Starbucks also said Kraft hasn’t involved it in sales planning and conversations with retailers. On Nov. 5, Starbucks sent a second letter saying Kraft had failed to remedy the breaches and that the agreement would end next March.

Undercutting Starbucks’s claim is the fact that the business has grown to $500 million in annual sales, from just $50 million in 1998. Certainly, Kraft owes some of that to growth in the Starbucks brand. But even Starbucks has given Kraft credit for running the business well. In April, Starbucks Chief Financial Officer Troy Alstead praised Kraft for its “world-class” capabilities in manufacturing, research and distribution.

Starbucks later offered to buy back to rights to the packaged coffee business for $750 million, but Kraft wasn’t interested and the dispute moved to the arbitration process that was completed today. In the meantime, Starbucks retook control of its packaged coffee and launched new partnerships, while Kraft has announced a deal with McDonald’s to sell its McCafe branded coffee in stores.